Jumping Over the Lazy Dog

A life of leisure. Haste makes waste. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Laziness is, and is not, something Americans sympathize with. I don't think I need to give you too many examples to prove my point.

I have long described myself as a "champion procrastinator." This is not to say that things don't get done. (Until well into grad school, I could count on one hand the number of times I submitted an assignment late; an instance during the second grade is particularly painful, having left a diorama on the bus.) Math homework was chronically completed minutes before class. I cringe at the hubris it took to start certain essays the night before the due date.

But procrastination is not necessarily the same as laziness. They're related, or possibly correlated, but my personal brand of procrastination is characterized by a strong push to get it done before the bell. If you're lucky, you'll have a talent for getting most things right on the first try--or at least, right enough to get a good grade. I remember writing a high school paper on Sinclair Lewis's Main Street based solely on Amazon preview pages. And getting an A. Yes, I was too lazy to get the book and start the assignment promptly; but I still managed to write something decent, and something on time.

Though I had a successful undergraduate career, I never really managed my procrastinator's nature; I merely developed ways to cope with it. For a long time, I've only been saved by my equally strong sense of timeliness: though I rarely submit something early, I also hate being late. My mom likes to remind me that I was born on my due date--politely punctual, not unfashionably early.

It's pretty ingrained. Both my parents love (?) to leave things until the last minute, whether it's signing a permission slip or scheduling vaccinations or arranging a major international trip. Again, it all gets done. I've come to trust that. But it makes other people, people with the planning gene, kind of uncomfortable.

Now, out in the real world, I find myself falling into the same patterns. My job demands an attention to detail that does not bode well for a procrastinator. That talent for doing things mostly right on the first try has helped, but I'm noticing a few items fall through the cracks, and that makes me feel crappy.

And I feel lazy.  Not just putting stuff off--not wanting to do it.

That's become an increasingly familiar feeling over the last few years: the latter part of grad school was full of it. I felt so pressed for time and energy, between a full course load and teaching and research, that I never felt like I could do a decent job of anything. It made me apathetic and unresponsive. I tossed out professors' comments unread, since I "knew" they hadn't seen me at my best. Why bother, I figured. I got lazy. No one cared, and no one was affected except me.

So with my current employer, I'm hoping my former love of positive faculty feedback will kick my butt into high gear, as it did in college. I'm not expecting a cure, but it I want to want to excel. Any laziness, any delay, does affect others now. We only get so many chances to impress. And I've been coasting.

Time to buckle down. Nose to the grindstone. Shoulder to the wheel.

Update: If I had seen this beforehand, I wouldn't have bothered.